QT003 - You shared your FIRE plan with your friends. They laughed, teased you, or just didn't get it. And now you're wondering if something's wrong with you - or with them. Neither. Here's why.

What this covers:

• Why your friends' reactions say more about their circumstances than your plan
• The income reality check — why FIRE sounds impossible from some vantage points
• How to stay social without blowing your savings rate
• The difference between needing support and needing approval

This one's for you if:

• You've been met with blank stares or gentle roasts when you mention FIRE
• You're starting to feel like you have to choose between your goals and your friendships
• You're tempted to go full evangelist mode (please don't)
• You just want permission to keep going without everyone understanding why

Question to sit with: Do you actually need your friends to get FIRE, or do you just need them to get you?

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#009: There's a gut-wrenching feeling you get when you realise your dream is going to die. Quietly. Financially.

This is the episode I haven't told properly until now. The full story, from a six-figure corporate law career in London, to quitting everything to become a personal trainer and mountain leader, to watching my savings drain to almost nothing, to a failed luxury retreat that cost me ten thousand pounds, to a relationship breakdown that left me financially exposed, to six months as a digital nomad across Mexico, Argentina and Bali, to bootstrapping a law firm in Singapore during COVID, to the evening I plugged my numbers into a spreadsheet and realised financial independence was years closer than I ever imagined.

This isn't the highlight reel. It's the wrong turns, the shame, the financial freefall, and what I actually learned from all of it.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The corporate law career that looked right but felt hollow
• Climbing Denali and the month that changed everything
• Quitting with £35,000 and thinking it was enough
• Building a fitness business that passion alone couldn't sustain
• The relationship breakdown that taught me what financial resilience really means
• The nomad chapter: Playa del Carmen, Buenos Aires, Canggu, Ubud
• Relocating to Singapore and discovering FIRE during COVID lockdown
• The spreadsheet moment I checked four times
• A six-month sabbatical that didn't fix me but showed me what needed fixing
• Why hitting milestones didn't make me feel free - and what was actually missing
• What still scares me and what excites me about what's ahead

THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF:

• You're in a high-income career wondering if this is it
• You've thought about quitting but don't have a plan underneath the fantasy
• You've made financial mistakes you haven't told anyone about
• You're building toward FIRE but starting to wonder what actually comes after the number
• You've been running away from something and calling it running toward something

The biggest lesson from this whole story: following your passion isn't wrong. Doing it without the financial infrastructure is what makes it unsustainable. And hitting your number doesn't make you free - knowing who you are without the job is what makes you free.

Life After Enough is a weekly podcast about money, meaning, and who you become when work becomes optional.

📩 Get the weekly email - one idea a week about money, identity, and what nobody tells you about life after financial independence. No fluff, no pitches. https://lifeafterenough.kit.com/newsletter

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#008 “Just one more year" is one of the most deceptively reasonable sentences in adulthood. It sounds smart. It sounds responsible. It sounds like exactly what a financially literate, level-headed professional would say.

But underneath all that logic, in most cases, one more year is just fear dressed up as strategy.

In this episode, I'm shining a spotlight on One More Year Syndrome - the pattern where smart, disciplined people keep delaying the life they've already earned. I break down why it happens, how to spot it early, and how to know when you're genuinely being strategic versus when you're just avoiding the blank page on the other side of work.

I also hold my hands up. I'm currently in year two of my own One More Year - and I share honestly why I'm staying, what's strategic about it, and what's purely emotional.

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What this episode covers:

• Why one more year almost never stays one year and how it easily becomes five or ten
• The identity gap: why freedom is more psychologically confronting than work
• The razor-thin line between choosing from clarity and choosing from fear (and why they feel identical in the moment)
• Why One More Year Syndrome isn't just a FIRE problem, it shows up the moment you have any financial breathing room at all
• My personal reasons for staying one more year: identity, parenthood, and an evolving FIRE number
• The two kinds of readiness most people never build and why only one of them is about money
• A single question to ask yourself that cuts through the noise

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This episode is for you if:

• You've hit or are approaching your number but something keeps holding you in place
• You keep finding rational reasons to delay a change you know you want to make
• You're not necessarily chasing FIRE but you have enough financial breathing room to make a shift — and you're not taking it
• Your spreadsheet says you're ready but the rest of you doesn't feel ready
• You're starting to wonder whether your "one more year" is strategic or just comfortable

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The question to sit with after this episode:

If you froze your life exactly as it is today, is the only thing missing more money? Or is what's actually missing something else entirely?

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https://lifeafterenough.kit.com/newsletter